This always happens with freelancing: work that actually pays slows down a bit so I turn my attention to non-paying creative writing pursuits, like this blog and a manuscript for a novel. Then work that actually pays shows up in my inbox (and for that I am very grateful if any of my editors are…
Category: Outdoors
The Other O.C.
There’s Orange County, the Southern California beachside haven of three million tawny, manicured people, and then there’s Orange County, a bucolic sanctuary about 60 miles north of Manhattan and home to approximately 372,000 people, many of them pale and wearing ripped jeans and cowboy boots or whatever was on sale at REI. New York’s Orange…
Yes, I Like the East Coast, Especially Now
For someone who is from the Northeastern United States, I frequently write about the American West Coast. Just last week, I wrote about Halloween costume shopping and funky drinks in Los Angeles, a city that is starting to become a second home. I feel more bicoastal, which is far more fun than feeling bipolar. For…
Two Very Different Sides of Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain is America’s sixth largest freshwater lake, and was once a hot spot of colonial military activity. Amid bear carving shops, ski resorts, and cafes serving fluffy flapjacks with thick bacon are forts and other nods to the region’s colonial past. Could 18th century northeastern Americans settling here have predicted that the lake would…
Getting Dirty in Atlantic City
There’s a lot of old, fading construction along Atlantic City’s famed boardwalk, and the newest construction is extremely vulnerable to the elements. The World Championship of Sand Sculpting happens every June quietly on the beach right by the raucousness that is Cesar’s Palace. To me, it was the most interesting activity happening in Atlantic City…